Our daily deeds as ordinary South Africans must produce an actual South African reality that will reinforce humanity's belief in justice, strenthen its confidence in the nobility of the human soul, and sustain all our hopes for a glorious life for all.

It's not our weaknesses that frighten us. It's our strengths.

Never, never and never again shall it be that this beautiful land will again experience the oppression of one by another.

We now undertake that we cannot rest while millions of our people suffer the pain and indignity of poverty in all its forms.

Where choice is set between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence ... I prefer to use arms in defense of honor rather than remain the vile witness of dishonor.

The curious beauty of African music is that it uplifts even as it tells a sad tale. You may be poor, you may have only a ramshackle house, you may have lost your job, but that song gives you hope.

Where people of goodwill get together and transcend their differences for the common good, peaceful and just solutions can be found even for those problems which seem most intractable.